Last week, the government finally released the terms of reference for the UK’s Covid Remembrance Commission with the aim of sparking a “UK-wide conversation” on how to remember the pandemic. It also started learning lessons by launching a public inquiry into its treatment
the pandemic. Among those who will testify are Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, the action group responsible for the National Covid Remembrance Wall on London’s South Bank.
The wall, made up of 200,000 red hearts – one for each British victim of the pandemic – has become a place of pilgrimage for bereaved families from across the UK, but is not officially recognized by the government. This reluctance can be partly explained by its positioning directly opposite parliament, making it a symbol for those angry at what they see as the government’s botched response to the pandemic.
Grieving and learning
In a recent report for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Dr David Tollerton, an expert on memory studies at the University of Exeter, argued that the main challenge for any country considering a permanent Covid commemoration is to find a way to encapsulate the magnitude of the national loss while allowing room for individual experiences of death and grief.
The problem is, public reflection on the past two and a half years of Covid-19 can’t help but navigate what Tollerton calls “a complex (and sometimes controversial) relationship between state and non-government agencies.” Motivations for public reflection also vary and there is “sometimes uncertainty about what it is that we reflect and remember”. The result, concludes Tollerton, is that “although many want to keep the commemoration entirely apolitical”, in practice this “can be difficult to achieve”.
The UK government’s failure to recognize the National Covid Memorial Wall is a case in point, reflecting its embarrassment over “Partygate” – memories Boris Johnson’s successor will probably also be happy to avoid. No wonder some have called for a memorial where people of all views and religions can come together to mourn the loss of loved ones in a quiet, politically neutral space (this is the thinking behind Plan of Saint Paul’s Cathedral for a new portico in his North Transcript).
No doubt some will argue that in the midst of a pandemic that seems far from over, there is little point in starting a national conversation about how Covid-19 should be remembered and in what form. But as the experience of the Grenfell fire and other disasters shows, it is difficult to reach a consensus, and if we want to do justice to national tragedies, even those caused by a random virus, we must be prepared to be frank and honest. to have conversations about who is to blame and to what extent.
The best chance of Covid-19 avoiding the same fate as the Spanish flu is to start that process now.
For more information on how pandemics have been commemorated in the past, see: www.rememberingpandemics.com